MK Stowaways for Underground Revival

MK Stowaways for Underground Revival

On 19 February 1968, eight days after departing Kenya, the vessel “Clan Ross” reached Cape Town, and when it docked, Bifana Matthews Ngcobo asked Walter Zulu to change £57 into South African currency. Zulu complied and was paid R30 in return. About two weeks prior to this incident, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Ngcobo approached Zulu, and said he was very hungry. Zulu, who was a seaman, took Ngcobo to the galley of the “Clan Ross” on which he was a crewman, and they both had something to eat. On the following day, Zulu and Ngcobo met again and Ngcobo was told to go to Mombasa to meet the ship there.

In Mombasa, Kenya, Matthews Ngcobo and Walter Zulu met again and Ngcobo took Zulu to meet Amos Lengisi, whom he introduced as a friend who wanted to join them on the trip to South Africa. A few days later, Lengisi and Ngcobo arrived at the “Clan Ross” and Zulu locked them in the cabin until the ship was at sea. Once the ship was on its way, Zulu transferred the two to the engine room until it docked in Cape Town. Ngcobo then told Zulu that when he returned to Dar es Salaam he should phone Mr Piliso and inform him that the journey was pleasant and that Ngcobo arrived safely at home. Ngcobo bought a train ticked to Durban and Amos Lengisi boarded a taxi to De Aar.

In a subsequent trip from Mombasa, Walter Zulu smuggled in Themba Linus Dlamini, whose brother, Isaac, linked him up with Dorothy Nyembe. Matthews Ngcobo, Linus Dlamini and Amos Lengisi had been infiltrated into the country as part of the efforts in the late 1960s to revive the underground. At the time of the Wankie Campaign, African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver Tambo had entrusted Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Commissar Moses Mabhida with the responsibility of executing this plan. The key idea was to infiltrate an advance team of operatives through another route so that by the time the MK cadres made their way into South Africa through Rhodesia, and by sea, reception networks would be well established.

Mabhida, in turn, instructed Eric Mtshali, an MK intelligence operative, to recruit seamen to help smuggle the advance team of MK members and propaganda material into the country by sea. According to Mtshali, many of these seamen who frequently sailed through Dar es Salaam were from Durban, and he knew and recruited them to undertake dangerous underground tasks for the movement. This was how Mtshali managed to arrange for Ngcobo, Lengisi and Dlamini to return to the country as stowaways. Those earmarked for this mission were given advanced training in intelligence and underground work in the Soviet Union.

On Sunday, 14 July 1968, while Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was attending mass at the Anglican Church in Nkonjeni, Mahlabathini District of Zululand, he received a message from one of his children, and went out to meet a woman, Dorothy Nyembe. Nyembe introduced him to Themba “Linus” Dlamini who had a letter from Moses Mabhida in Lusaka. Buthelezi said he knew Mabhida as an ANC leader, and after a short discussion, Dlamini asked Buthelezi if there was a suitable coast in Zululand for submarine landings, and whether the Buthelezi people would be willing to take up arms if weapons were supplied. Buthelezi said no, his people were not willing to do that. Nyembe and Dlamini then departed.

Linus Dlamini evaded the police for at least eight months before he was arrested on 20 September 1968 at Dorothy Nyembe’s house at K6, KwaMashu. On 23 September, Bifana Matthews Ngcobo was arrested at his father’s kraal in Zululand, and during the search of the premises, a Bible was found that he used for coding messages. Three days later, at around 09:00 in the morning, Amos Lengisi was arrested in Umtata. All three appeared in the trial in Pietermaritzburg with nine others in January 1969.

In 1968 Dorothy Nyembe also found herself back in the hands of the security police and was held in solitary confinement for many weeks. The arrest of Dorothy Nyembe, who had been part of the ANC underground in the Greater Durban area and in south-western Natal after 1966, threatened to expose and implicate other members of the unit to which Nyembe had belonged. Most of these underground members were under banning orders, including Leonard Mdingi, Johannes “Passfour” Phungula, Gladys Manzi and Florence Mkhize. Eventually, in January 1969, she was brought to court along with 10 men and charged on 5 counts under the Suppression of Communism Act.

Apparently, the Stowaway Unit was sold out by Karl Kleinbooi, who was part of the unit of Ngcobo, Lengisi and Dlamini that received advanced intelligence training in the Soviet Union, as well as Leonard Mandla Nkosi and Charles Makhaye (aka “Morris Mandela”) who were former cadres of MK that had received military training abroad and were veterans of the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns. They had been turned into “Askaris” in 1968 and were used as state witnesses in the 1969 trial. The evidence Leonard Nkosi and Charles Makhaye provided during the trial, sent shockwaves through the ranks of the small underground units in Natal.

Judgement was given on 26 March 1969. All but one of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to terms ranging from 5 to 20 years imprisonment. Dorothy Nyembe was found guilty of one charge – that of “harbouring terrorists”. For the aid she gave to MK militants, she was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. The rest were found guilty of various charges under the Terrorism Act, including going abroad for military training; establishing means for trained guerrillas to re-enter South Africa; locating suitable submarine landing sites on the coast; encouraging people to go for military training and giving assistance to freedom fighters.

Meanwhile, in Dar es Salaam, Sandi Sijake and Lambert Moloi were waiting to be sent to South Africa by merchant ship, but Moses Kotane arrived to inform that the operation had been called off after the arrests of Dlamini, Ngcobo and Lengisi. They then had to head back to Zambia. Sijake maintained that “Our ANC leaders’ cautiousness helped because just as Comrade Lambert Moloi and I were due to set off using the same route, the ANC leaders received the news of the arrest of those three comrades. As a result, our mission to return home was cancelled by comrades (Moses) Kotane and (JB) Marks” (Sandi Sijake).

For ANC President OR Tambo, according to MK Chief of Staff, Joe Slovo, “The small advance group selected … should be regarded ‘first and foremost’ as ‘politically conscious, politically trained persons, under the political direction of a political commissar’. Anyone who was to be selected for such reconnaissance work should take age and occupation into account, as well as fill Tambo’s criteria of having a knowledge of the operational area, the language, local politics and individual contacts. In fact, Tambo felt that he, himself, was an ideal candidate for Operation J” (Luli Callinicos).

Sources:
Stephen Ellis, “External Mission: the ANC in Exile”.
Sandi Sijake, “Fighting for My Country: The Testimony of a Freedom Fighter”.
Hugh Macmillan, “The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia”.
Jacob Dlamini, “Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-apartheid Struggle”.
Luli Callinicos, “Beyond the Engeli Mountains”.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”.
Tim Jenkin, “Welcome Home, Dorothy Nyembe, Women’s Leader”, Sechaba, March 1984.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!